OUTSOURCE OR IN-HOUSE: WHEN A BUSINESS NEEDS A FINANCE SPECIALIST
Here’s why
The short answer is that finance is their job!
They raise and pay your bills, do the payroll and many many other things independently from everyone else in the business.
Collections in particular, take time to nuture relationships with your clients.
Think about how useful they would be when you need to call in that favour when you’re running low on cash and you need someone to pay their invoice early!!
More strategically and for planning purposes, the finance specialist knows your business. They know what the email attachment is that they have received and, most importantly, they put it in the right place on your reports.
Imagine, being sent an income statement with “office costs” with a huge number on it. The finance specialist can see the purchase orders, has an understanding of what you need to see as a business owner and, as they say, does the needful.
Outsourcing vs. In-House
Like I said before, there are some great outsource finance businesses out there. I work with Philip McMillan Woods in Dubai. They are a great bunch of guys to work with.
As your business grows, you’ll have more people in your business and more external parties feeding into your business. Financial reporting is a straightforward way of exercising a level of control through having clear, visible financials. It’s also an objective way of distilling all your business conversations into a short, succinct summary.
Business Finance Planning
Reporting your actual spend is a straightforward task for a half-decent finance professional, especially as there are many tools now that can automate the transactional side.
Your new in-house finance professional will then set their sights to budgeting and forecasting.
Having a robust and well defined set of financial reports, makes forecasting quite straight-forward, you will have an engaged business owner as they already see the numbers and ultimately a financial budget and plan that all the business can own.
Fractional Finance
As an interim measure, SME’s in the UK are looking at fractional finance resource to implement these processes, systems and plans on a project basis.
An outsourced resource can continue to used to “turn the wheel” of the accounts. The fractional finance professional can steer them in line with a particular business’s strategy.
When the business gets to a size where regular reporting is needed, or maybe, volumes get to a level, the outsourced role can be switched to an employee with the fractional CFO guiding the new employee in the handover.
If any of this strikes a chord with you, book a free discovery meeting HERE.
